AGAIN CALLS THE OWL

by Margaret Craven ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 8, 1980

As the title means to remind you, Margaret Craven is the author of I Heard the Owl Call My Name, the 1973 bestseller about a dying Anglican priest among the British Columbia Indians. In this handful of autobiographical notes (77 skimpy pages), she recalls Stanford during the Depression (hard work and high spirits), an early newspaper splash, and starting out--cold--to write fiction. Then the slight narrative thread snaps. By World War II, we're told, Craven was selling short stories to virtually ""all the big markets."" She nearly loses her sight, and partially regains it (bucked up by ""my infantrymen""--sympathetic convalescents). And then her last Saturday Evening Post story, ""Indian Outpost,"" leads to an invitation to actually visit an Indian community--ministered to, it develops, by a stricken (but not dying) priest. Thus: I Heard the Owl Call My Name, published in Canada years before the U.S. What little Craven has to say apropos of the Indians is best overlooked (she quotes herself, for instance, as inquiring: ""In the old, old days the terrible cannibal dance, the bamatsu, and the supernatural myths and magic were all fake, weren't they?""); and the whole thing is so cursory and fragmentary that only the paper it's printed on seems to hold it together.

Pub Date: April 8, 1980

ISBN: 0440300746

Page Count: -

Publisher: Putnam

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1980

Categories: NONFICTION